Worcester Business Journal Special Editions

www.wbjournal.com • Worcester Business Journal 9 25 YEARS: IMPACTFUL PEOPLE W hen Dennis Berkey arrived on the WPI campus in 2004, he was known as the right-hand man of John Silber, Boston University's longtime leader who ran unsuccessfully for gov- ernor in 1990. During Berkey's nine-year tenure as the 15th president of WPI, he was cred- ited for leading the school through a key period of growth. Construction of eight new buildings, a 57-percent increase in student enrollment and the addition of new academic programs combined to push WPI forward. WPI also became the first university in the nation to have all three levels of degree programs in robotics engineering, while research funding grew nearly threefold. Berkey strongly promoted the univer- sity's role in economic development in and around Worcester and strength- ened WPI's ties with the local commu- nity. He was the architect of WPI's vol- untary payment in lieu of taxes to the city, which supports the Worcester Public Library and Institute Park with more than $9 million in annual funding over 25 years. WPI also took an eco- nomic-development leadership role, investing more than $110 million in Gateway Park, which is now the home of several WPI divisions. n DOUGLAS BERTHIAUME D ouglas Berthiaume announced in August 2013 that he planned to retire as head of the publicly traded Waters Corp. within 24 months. President and CEO since 1994, ans chairman since 1996, he remains in those roles as of press time. It's been 19 years since Waters went public. The year before, a Waters management team, led by Berthiaume, purchased the assets of Waters Chromatography Division from Millipore, which had acquired the unit in 1980, for $360 million. Since the mid-1990s, other life-sci- ences firms have expanded their product lines, made opportunistic acquisitions, and merged and spun off new entities. But Waters has stood pat under Berthiaume's leadership. While competitors' offerings cover a wide range of fields within lab scienc- es and beyond, Waters focuses only on two methods of analyzing labora- tory samples. It has paid off, with rev- enue having risen 500 percent over two decades. Berthiaume has also been influen- tial at the community level. He and his wife, Diana, donated $10 million to establish a center for entrepreneur- ship at UMass Amherst. He has also been a patron and supporter of Milford Regional Medical Center, which recently benefited from a $500,000 company donation toward a $25-million campus upgrade. n GAIL CARBERRY U nder Gail Carberry's thoughtful leadership since 2006, Quinsigamond Community College is now a 13,000-student community college, the largest in Massachusetts. The Worcester native has managed record growth and expansion, including the opening of a now-robust Southbridge campus in 2009. Three years later, QCC announced plans to expand to downtown Worcester with a new Healthcare and Workforce Development Training Center and a health-careers campus in the for- mer Telegram & Gazette building. (Some classes at that site began in September.) In addition, a new science and technology building is slated to open in 2016. QCC is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with Carberry firmly at the helm – and continuing to steer the school into the future. "My mother herself per- severed through a lifetime of debilitating rheumatoid arthritis," Carberry once told the WBJ. "She inspired me to move forward." S mall-business owners tend to fall into two camps: the activists, and those who "don't want to get out in front of anything because they don't want to jeopardize the business." That's what Frank Carroll, founder and chair- man of the Small Business Service Bureau, told the Worcester Business Journal in 2010. For Carroll, relationships with the community, as well as with the social, charitable and advocacy organizations within the community, are just as important as business relationships. His tireless efforts on behalf of those organizations has garnered Carroll much recognition in recent years, such as when he donated office space to The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts before its launch. Today, the downtown area on Southbridge Street between the SBSB's Main Street office and the theater is known as Francis R. Carroll Plaza. Carroll was also instrumental in the years-long effort to get the city's Korean War veterans memorial built on Foster Street in downtown Worcester. He was honored in 2004 with the Isaiah Thomas Award, given by the Telegram & Gazette to individ- uals who dedicate themselves to public service. In 2009, the Business Empowerment Center created the Francis R. Carroll Guiding Light Award in his honor. The award is given to individuals or busi- nesses with a strong record of support- ing inclusiveness and small-business development. n FRANK CARROLL n DENNIS BERKEY Gail Carberry Douglas Berthiaume >> Continued on Page 10

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